Seiler’s 8-minute intervals (Polarized)

Thanks. That’s interesting stuff. It makes me feel better when I look at Kaiser and see about half of the people dial down the intensity or bail!

@DaveWh yeah, compliance is a lot lower than I thought it would be for most workouts.

If you want to be truly elite among TR users, don’t shoot for a 4 w/kg bogey…aim to complete your next Elephant +4 workout…complete EFI, no backpedalling, no pausing…then hit the ‘+’ button on the last interval. I’ll bet not many TR users ever accomplish that.

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I’ve got Elephants +5 in 2 1/2 weeks…

Just skimming through this thread and elsewhere I would consider this the most successful and “correct” execution of these types of intervals I’ve read here. Nice work. It’s not about figuring out %FTP ahead of time. Go all out for 4 mins, steady or slightly negative split (progressive power). “Athlete figures it out”, as you say. Fail the first few sessions because you paced it wrong (which is ultimately a success, not to mention extremely common), and by the 2nd or 3rd session you’ll nail it.

Even though Seiler used cyclists for these set of studies (I think), these are decades old running intervals. Failing/half completing Elephants +4 in ERG mode is not the same as completing these types of intervals by just figuring it out as you go, in which case they are always successes. You’re getting less out of the “failed Elephant” scenario.

Tim

(addendum: yes, RPE should be the highest. that’s what “all out” means)

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That’s a brutal workout. I bet the IF for the section of the workout where the intervals start is 1.05, or maybe higher. If you’re able to complete this, probably means your FTP has increased?

If it’s 2 weeks away there’s a few sessions to build up to it yet! I did Elephants+5 last March and distinctly remember letting out a very loud shout to nobody but myself the end of the last interval :grinning:

The main part of the workout for me was 1hr 2min at 0.96IF

Almost certainly. I think the only place that workout appears in any official capacity is in week four sustained power build. Next week is recovery…then ramp test. So by week four you should have accumulated some material adaptation.

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AND that session has 5min breaks between the 8min intervals, for a total IF across the work period of 0.98. The suggestion for the Seiler intervals is that you do those intervals with only 2 minutes recovery, at IF 1.03.

I’m not saying no-one could do the Seiler intervals at 108%, but if you can do it and walk afterwards, it really is time for another ramp test.

These workouts appear to be extremely taxing mentally and physically (to a non-racer enthusiast) For a non-racer, you need to be peaking in your fitness just to be able to finish them. So if you are just an enthusiast, shouldn’t you be saving these efforts for the road? From a seasonal perspective, you likely only have so many hard + workouts in your quiver before your burn yourself out for the year. I’m not a racer, so I will leave my hard + efforts for group rides and stick to SS and tempo efforts indoors building up to outdoor riding.

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@Captain_Doughnutman I expect you to crush this workout, now.

As I’m heading into the 3rd week of being sick & horking up loogies(?) I don’t have great faith in the results…but hell yeah! CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! :metal:

Now where did I leave that e-bike…

This may have been mentioned before but didn’t Seiler have his guinea pigs self select the intensity for the intervals in that they did them as hard as possible and therefore the intensity as a percentage of FTP would have been highly variable.

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As part of my TT preparation in the past I have used a 8 x 4 min interval with 2 minute recovery at 110% of ftp…at times I have barely made it through (and felt like I was going to die) or stopped at about 6 and then broken the last 2 down to 2 minute intervals

Doing Seilers 4x8 doesn’t sound like a fun workout but would likely be more manageable with 5 min recovery.

That equates to 0.99 intensity over the 8 intervals (48 minutes total pedalling). Yep, pretty tough!

This seems to indicate that either many users could have overestimated their FTP, or also Vo2 max does not always correlate with MLSS or FTP (whatever your definition of this is).

I think the point and goal of these workouts are about the physiological adaptions that occur with time spent at these specific intensities. It’s not supposed to reflect an athletes ability like the 8 minute FTP test. As others have mentioned, Dr. Seiler talks about using %HR Max for these intervals. And that the athletes “solve” them by finding a repeatable power number for the duration of targeted time. This will vary as % of FTP from athlete to athlete and probably from session to session as well. I think he said if you’re going over 95% of HR max it’s too hard and not necessary.

From personal experience I’ve done 7x4/2 min at 108% FTP and only had to reduce on the 7th interval. I am building up to eventually 4x8/2 - yikes!

I think if we change our perspective on these workouts and not look at them as tests, or if we stop being slaves to certain power numbers, and realize that the goal is the process of spending time at high intensity, then we will get more out of them.

As far as rest between intervals goes, the studies they did, show that 2 minutes are enough and result in the highest adaption. Again, the goal is the time spent at high intensity. I feel we are better off decreasing intensity to get a repeatable power with 2 minutes rest, than going too hard that we need 5 min rest… IMO it’s a “waste” of time to be resting for 5 minutes, bringing the overall intensity of the workout down significantly.

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From my experience, going over 95% of HR max means that complete exhaustion / failure is about a minute away at most unless you dial it down…

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If true to the observational data, this is a very late phase type of workout. Coach Chad brought up the German 4k pursuit team from Sydney and their workout plan leading up to the Olympics. I believe they only added focused intervals 8 weeks out, otherwise it was vast amounts of aerobic miles. For a 4 minute event. This also follows a mindset of having the hard days really hard with the rest zone 1. It would be hard to work this in while doing ss or threshold work adding extra fatigue.

This is correct.

I’m not sure why people are anchoring on 108%.

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And to your point, a lot of folks us a polarized approach as an in season structure. So your “hard days” are races, everything else is “easy”. Granted, it’s not as refined as using data, etc., but there is something to be said for it in sports where you don’t have power meters.

I’m not 100% sure but I think the 108% came from @mcneese.chad chart.
It corresponds to 90% of Vo2 max or 90% HR max (where Dr. Seiler assumes 100% of HR max is at 100% of Vo2 max).
So hypothetically, if bottom of zone 3 starts at 100% FTP, and top of zone 3 is at 120% FTP or Vo2 max, then somewhere in the middle is what people are shooting for, hence the 108%.
But if I remember correctly, Dr. Seiler himself never actually put a percentage of FTP on this. And when asked about if LT2 is even at FTP, he seemed to not like that assumption at all, saying it’s very individual. In fact, Vo2 max is your 6 minute power according to Dr Seiler, which should be easy enough to test. So that would also be something to look at. 90% of 6 minute power.

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